Page 62 of Snowed In
“Holy shit,” Molly laughs as she overtakes him. “She’s fast.”
She is.
Megan doesn’t so much as glide along the water as she does power through it, a lot stronger than she looks. So strong she even catches up with Hannah, who’s been taking lessons since she was five.
She doesn’t slow down either. Daniela and Molly shriek encouragement at their respective partners as they reach the island, but it’s Megan who ekes out in front as they head back. Barely a minute has passed, and I step closer to the shore, not taking my eyes off her as they head into their final few strokes.
I’ve never been competitive, never needed to be, but an unfamiliar sense of pride fills me as I watch her, the urge to shout like the other two growing stronger as I get caught up in the moment.
Andrew falls back and it’s just Hannah and Megan now, side by side, as they kick their way back to us, and I swear my heart thrums with each splash, willing her on.
“She’s amazing!” Molly yells, shaking my arm in her excitement, and I can only nod because, yes, she is.
Hannah eventually beats her to the post, much to Daniela’s delight, but Megan doesn’t seem to mind. She’s smiling when she hauls herself out of the lake, even as her body shudders, and I stride over with the towel, only to falter when she stands, jogging the final few steps to me. The straps of her swimsuit fall as she does, revealing the curve of her breasts before she pulls them back up, and my eyes stray for a full second before another shiver runs through her, this one almost violent in its intensity, and all other thoughts are wiped from my brain.
“You’re freezing,” I scold, as she wraps the towel around her. “Where’s your coat?”
“I left it in the— it’s going to get wet,” she protests, as I shrug off my own and put it around her shoulders.
“It will dry,” I say, tugging it closed. Not like her hair, which is plastered to her head. That’s still wet. Not just wet. Soaking. And she doesn’t have another towel for it. Isn’t that a thing? Wet hair in the cold? She needs another towel. She needs—
“Andrew,” I bark, and Megan looks up at me in surprise. “Megan needs another towel.”
“Don’t yell,” she whispers.
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
I shrug, watching my equally cold brother jog over to the bags for another towel.
“Are you annoyed that I didn’t win?” Megan asks.
“What?”
“Are you pissed at me because I didn’t win the race?”
I drag my attention back to her, beyond confused. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you mad?”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you scowling like that?” She’s smiling as she says it, even as she continues to shiver, which only baffles me more because I’m not scowling; she’s just cold, and—
I fall still as she reaches up, pressing a finger to the spot between my brows. “Right there,” she says, poking me lightly, and it’s at that moment Andrew chooses to appear, a towel in his hand.
“You’re on my team next time,” he says. “You swim?”
“A bit,” she says, only to grin when he laughs. For some reason, the sight of it only makes my mood worse.
“Thanks,” I say, a little pointedly to Andrew as I take the towel from him. He just lopes back over to Molly as I shake it out.
“I thought you wantedmeto have the towel,” she says, still sounding giddy. Maybe that’s a symptom of hypothermia.
“I can do it,” I mutter, opening it up before glancing at her hair and realizing, no, I can’t.
She snorts at my obvious confusion and grabs it back from me, flipping her head forward to do some complicated twist that makes it stay in place.
